Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am delighted. Unfortunately, I missed part of the speech by my colleague from Mount Royal because I was busy doing other, less interesting things. With my colleague's speech, we finally got a speech about the motion being debated today. We have heard more criticism about the relevance of the motion than about the content of the motion itself, so I very much appreciate the speech b…
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Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.
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Madam Speaker, I want to commend my colleague for his speech. We used to work together on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I am glad he is not on the committee anymore because he made me do push-ups. He forced us to do physical activity. There is a reason he is now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Sport. Seriously though, it was a pleasure to work with him. Obviously, the…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about how people are reporting longer wait times for surgical treatment. That is true. She said that her government has transferred money to help address these backlogs. I was stunned when I heard my colleague make that statement, because that is exactly what the premiers of all of the provinces and Quebec keep telling the federal government. There are wait lists …
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to see my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill in the House again. It has been a while, and we miss hearing her during our debates. One section of Bill C‑19 has to do with the luxury tax. I agree on the principle: Those who benefited more during the pandemic can and should contribute to helping those who struggled a bit more. However, this section includes a measure on…
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Mr. Speaker, these are tough times for the press. In Ukraine, journalists are being bombed to death. In Russia, journalists have to go into exile or let themselves be put in jail, where they are silenced for telling the truth about the war. Journalists, columnists and bloggers everywhere are being imprisoned, threatened or killed. The planet is warming, the pandemic is lingering and war is raging …
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Madam Speaker, namaste. I am very pleased to rise in the House as my party's critic on living together to speak to Motion No. 42, which would declare November Hindu heritage month. The motion, for the benefit of my colleagues, reads as follows: That, in the opinion of the House, the government should recognize the contributions that Hindu Canadians [and Quebeckers] have made to the socio-economic …
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Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, our great lady of Quebec song, Ginette Reno, was named a Knight of the Legion of Honour, the highest national honour of the Republic of France. This singer, with a distinctive voice that is both tender and powerful, can sing that she is qu'une chanson, only a song, but everyone in Quebec knows that she is much more than that. She knew how to take her craft Un peu plus h…
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear my colleague from Louis‑Saint‑Laurent speak in the House. One thing we would have liked to see in this bill is a bit more recognition of the issues facing small businesses. My numbers are from October 31, 2021, and the situation may have gotten worse since then, but the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, or CFIB, states that more than one-qu…
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois supported this bill at second reading because it did not have much substance and there were so many things to improve. Acting in good faith, we voted in favour of the bill so we could work on it. Basically, not much has happened since, and we are once again left with a bill that is devoid of substance. This bill does very little to address the labour shortage and gi…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. In recent years, we have been seeing more and more of all kinds of not-so-subtle little interferences in areas under the jurisdiction of Québec and the provinces. This latest one is new: interference in municipal jurisdiction. I know it, the Bloc Québécois knows it, and constitutional lawyer Patrick Taillon confirms that the federal government's …
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Madam Speaker, I heard my Conservative colleague say a moment ago that if the Liberals do not understand how the economy works and do not know how to get the job done, they should step aside and let a responsible party do it. I heard my colleague's appeal, but I regret to say that the Bloc Québécois has no intention of taking over the government. We are here to make proposals, but we do not want t…
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Madam Speaker, country music great Julie Daraîche passed away suddenly this week, leaving millions of Quebeckers and Acadians in mourning. Whether she performed solo, with the Daraîche family or as a duo with her brother Paul, this extraordinary artist made Quebec's cowboys dance and sing for over 50 years. Her songs will continue to resonate for many years to come. With hits like Pardonner et oub…
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Madam Speaker, I really liked the parliamentary secretary's answer, but it was a good answer to a question I did not ask. The answer had nothing to do with the question. Local and regional news has been dwindling before our very eyes for the past 20 years. This did not become a crisis overnight. I am not talking about digital media; I am talking about the distribution of local and regional weekly …
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Madam Speaker, these are tough times for local and regional newspapers. Even as they grapple with challenges brought on by online competition, they have to contend with changing habits as “Publisac”, the plastic bag used for door-to-door flyer distribution, fades from view. Across most of Quebec, the unassuming Publisac is how our regional newspapers are distributed because Canada Post charges exo…
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Mr. Speaker, these are the words of Jean Ferrat: They were twenty and one hundred, they were in the thousands, Naked and gaunt, trembling, in sealed wagons, They tore at the night with their restless fingers. They were in the thousands, they were twenty and one hundred. On this Yom HaShoah, we remember. We remember what people can do when they lose their humanity. We remember the atrocities that e…
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Madam Speaker, following the NDP-Liberal agreement and alliance and the announcements made about pharmacare and dental care, there is something missing in the budget, namely a recurrent and unconditional increase in health transfers. This an important, basic and unanimous request by Quebec and the provinces, to which the government is responding only in a roundabout fashion. That is not what this …
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Madam Speaker, like the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives often champion Quebec's and the provinces' jurisdiction and generally oppose federal interference in areas under their control. Bill C‑8 would see the federal government claim a piece of the property tax pie, which is under municipal jurisdiction. That kind of interference is new. What are my colleagues' thoughts on the Liberals' interferen…
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Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague from Saskatchewan talking about the wait times experienced by francophone veterans and veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces in the processing of their cases. That fact really struck home. In my riding, one veteran has been caught up in red tape for a decade. To illustrate how ridiculous this situation is, he stated that if the government had put as much energy an…
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Mr. Speaker, the Oscars gave talented Quebeckers in the film industry their due, and now the Grammys have recognized our music industry stars. Yesterday, Montreal orchestra conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin picked up the Grammy for best orchestral performance for the Philadelphia Orchestra's recording of Florence Price's Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3. This honour reflects well on our institutions, which are …
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Mr. Speaker, excluding the answer to a question is not a good idea either. Exclusion is not a method of inclusion. What is more, what starts as a good intention creates division. There are young, competent male researchers out there who are in no way associated with the discrimination of the past, yet they are not even allowed to apply. These individuals are having their opportunity taken away in …
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Mr. Speaker, a call for applications for research chairs at Laval University is attracting a lot of attention because it excludes white men. There are a lot of ways to promote inclusion and diversity within our institutions, and we completely agree with the principle. One way to do so would be through anonymous résumés, for example. However, exclusion is not the way to go. Exclusion is not a metho…
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Madam Speaker, we rarely have the opportunity to draw attention to certain things, and I would like to do that now. Earlier, my colleague from Jonquière asked two simple questions to my colleague from Winnipeg North, the same questions that our colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean has been asking for two weeks: Will the government commit to airlifting people and extending the operating hours of its offic…
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Vancouver East on her speech. Let me tell the House about Sylvain, a constituent of the riding I represent. His wife Viktoriia hid out in the basement of the school where she taught in the small town of Nizhyn, a little north of Kyiv. After three weeks, she was finally able to leave Ukraine and seek refuge in Poland. It was an extremely traumatic exp…
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Madam Speaker, I can see that some of my colleagues on the other side of the House still have some things to say. I thank and commend my colleague from the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage for his speech. I completely agree with him. Quebec and Canada have had some massive success stories precisely because our broadcasting system promotes content created by Quebeckers and Canadians. Many ar…
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Mr. Speaker, on Sunday evening, Quebec once again celebrated the success of one of its distinguished ambassadors at the biggest event in Hollywood. Dune, from filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, a native of Gentilly in Bécancour, took home no fewer than six Oscars. Experts all agreed that Dune was the kind of film that even the most seasoned director could have bungled. This was not Denis Villeneuve's fir…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the speech from my colleague, with whom I serve on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. Bill C‑11 corrects a concern that was raised during the study of Bill C‑10, the predecessor of Bill C‑11, which was dropped in the previous Parliament. Bill C‑11 clearly states that the CRTC will not be able to use algorithms to verify whether digital platforms are meeting t…
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Madam Speaker, yesterday, during question period, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship talked about everything the government had set up for Ukrainians arriving in Canada. She talked about all the services that have been made more accessible and all the assistance put in place to ease their arrival and make it as comfortable as possible. As my collea…
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Madam Speaker, I have nothing against the idea of taxing vacant property, especially foreign-owned property, as the underused housing tax proposes, since that helps calm the overheated market. However, this is the first time the federal government is so directly and so heavily encroaching on provincial jurisdictions—and even municipal ones, in this case. Does my colleague not believe that instead …
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Mr. Speaker, the Drummond chamber of commerce and industry, the CCID, is celebrating its 120th anniversary this year. Drummond is one of the most prolific entrepreneurial centres in Quebec. Are members aware that the expression “one person's loss is another's gain” does not apply in Drummond? That is because one person's gain is everyone's gain in Drummond. This even applies to success: When one p…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Shepard. I wish he had asked me that question before I started my speech, because I could have spent 15 minutes answering it and I would have done so with passion. Quebec itself has a duty to protect the French fact in North America. Quebec is a francophone island in an anglophone sea. There are francophones in the United States too. I think Quebec ha…
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Mr. Speaker, in response to the first part of my colleague's question, I will say that yes, we did move a motion on our opposition day. It was debated and then adopted on March 2. That was our way of testing the waters. I also knew that we would have the opportunity to debate this bill in more depth and then send it to be properly studied in committee. We have no intention of talking about the Con…
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moved that Bill C-246, An Act to amend the Constitution Act, 1867, regarding representation in the House of Commons, be read the second time and referred to a committee. Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking you for the thoughtful consideration you have given me by allowing the House to dissolve and those members who wish to do so to go about their business, thus enabling me to make a spe…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his question. The bill we have introduced is about Quebec's representation in the House of Commons. It is about the fact that Quebec is at risk of losing seats or weight in the House of Commons as the Canadian population increases. We know that demographic growth in Quebec does not necessarily follow the curve, so this bill is in…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I still have the same big question mark over my head. I understand the desire and intention to reduce the burden on Canadians and Quebeckers in these times of crisis, but what I do not understand is that this effort is always going to be directed at the government and the taxpayer. Oil companies are raking in huge profits, and they are receiving …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for his speech and say that I sympathize with inability to move his amendment. I would like to start by talking about this amendment. I was a little surprised to hear my NDP colleague propose an amendment that, rather than incentivizing the transition to green energy, proposes to continue encouraging the consumption of petroleum products. My o…
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. Once again, we see that the Liberal Party can do no wrong. When my colleague is no longer a politician, I recommend that he get a job at an advertising agency, where he will just write ads for the Liberal Party. He would be the best one there. It might surprise members to hear me say this, but my colleague from Jonquière made some good poin…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. I was very intrigued as I listened to all his comments, and I was glad to hear that he supports the motion put forward by the member for Burnaby South. The NDP is proposing that, among other things, a certain percentage be taken of banks' and other businesses' excess profits, but one thing that worries me is what they plan to do with th…
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Mr. Speaker, let me express my admiration for my colleagues from Mirabel and Terrebonne, who spoke so incredibly eloquently with knowledge of their respective topics. It is often said that the Bloc does nothing but block, but that is just not true. We bring solutions, ideas and depth to the debates. I think that my colleagues proved that in their speeches. There is something I would like someone t…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to congratulate my colleague from Saint-Jean for her brilliant speech. Based on the questions we have been hearing since this morning, some of our colleagues seem to have difficulty grasping the difference between Quebec's demographic weight and its political weight. I want to emphasize the fundamental difference. I would therefore like my colleague to elabor…
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Mr. Speaker, I finally get it. I have been listening to my Liberal colleagues react to our speeches and making speeches since this morning. They are wilfully blind. They read the motion, they understand the motion, but they are twisting the meaning of the motion to—
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Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I am extremely disappointed with the tone taken by my colleague from Hochelaga today. I do not know what mood she was in when she read the Bloc Québécois motion. I do not see where she got the impression that it criticizes the work of the government or the work of the members from Quebec, regardless of political stripe. Nothing could be further from the truth. Member…
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Mr. Speaker, allow me to take a deep breath before I start my speech. I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Manicouagan. Not too long ago, an anglophone journalist asked me whether Bill C-246, which I recently introduced and which would add a so-called Quebec nation clause to the Constitution, was just another frivolous request from Quebec. After a polite pause, she added that, accordin…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague from Winnipeg North because he mentioned Bill C-11 on broadcasting, which I obviously care a lot about. Today's motion and Bill C-246, which I think are somewhat related because they are similar in purpose, do not criticize the government's work or the intentions and work of members from other parts of Canada. Yes, there are some good provis…
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Mr. Speaker, I will say that I enjoy working with my colleague at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage meetings. I have two answers to my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby's question. The first thing I would say is that we can walk and chew gum at the same time. It is pretty incredible, but we can. In his speech this morning, my leader said there would never be a right time. If we wait…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Hull—Aylmer for his speech. Since he is also my representative, that gives me an idea. I could transfer a few cases in my riding to him. We could join forces. I found several parts of my colleague’s speech very interesting, in particular the one in which he proposed having more babies. I would like him to know that, in Quebec, we experienced…
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Mr. Speaker, I was saying that the Liberals are wilfully blind. They know it, and they understand the motion. They know that this has nothing to do with the very legitimate process of an independent organization redrawing the electoral map based on demographics and demographic changes. We understand all that. I believe that I am creating a new term. First there was the infamous “mansplaining”, and…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie for his speech. It is clear that he has a great deal of love for Quebec and the Quebec nation. I heard him refer to a Quebec clause. I am the sponsor of a bill introduced by my party, Bill C-246, which also focuses on Quebec's political weight and proposes a nation provision that seeks to preserve, as the motion we are moving today…
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Madam Speaker, I did not hear a question, but I thank my colleague for her comments and will expand on them. She named some artists who became popular thanks to the quotas that were imposed many years before their time, when I was just starting out in radio. That is fantastic. Ariane Moffatt, who is considered a veteran today, was a newcomer when I was just about at the end of my radio career. I t…
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague from Saskatoon—Grasswood on his speech. I have the pleasure of sitting with this colleague on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We certainly do not always have the same views on all issues, but we certainly have the same passion for media and culture. He was involved in the discussions about Bill C‑10 on broadcasting in the previous Parliament,…
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